Chapter One Translation

  Time flies quickly, and before I knew it, winter had arrived. As the saying goes, 'a hundred days of convalescence after a serious illness'. I spent a full 100 days lying in bed at home, and when I was bored, I would read the newspaper or the content of Guiguzi's remaining volume, chapter 1.

  Until one day, that day I still can't forget until now, it was the first ten days of November. I had read all the newspapers at home that day and felt there was nothing interesting about them. I decided to get out of bed and take a few steps to try out my legs which were not yet agile.

  When I walked to the wooden desk in my room, I saw a package wrapped in gray cloth on the desk. This package was given to me by my grandfather when he was still alive, and he didn't say what it was or what it was for, just told me not to open it unless absolutely necessary.

  Human curiosity always prompts people to explore, and my curiosity is even stronger than that of ordinary people. Sitting on the stool, I picked up the gray fabric in my hand, opened it, and inside there were only a dozen or so pages of worn-out paper, along with a brown notebook, nothing else.

  Seeing these things, I couldn't help but feel curious. When Grandfather handed them to me, he only said not to open them unless absolutely necessary. What use could a few sheets of paper and a notebook possibly have?

  I took a glance at the old, tattered paper and couldn't make out any of the characters - they didn't even look like Chinese. It was as if I had three heads instead of one. So I picked up the brown notebook and flipped to the first page, where it read "Han Gengyan, July 1953". This was clearly written by my grandfather before I was born.

  I turned to the second page, and it was actually about Grandpa's story of stealing a tomb from a nameless mountain, where 47 lives were lost in exchange for a mysterious green pouch with unknown uses. However, what was written on it had many differences from what Grandpa told me.

  I flipped through another dozen or so pages and found that what was written above were some of the things Grandfather had experienced underground. The contents were all very astonishing, because now they have all been broken down. If I were to make this notebook public, I'm afraid I would be struggled against and then shot, because the events recorded here are truly too astonishing.

  Looking seriously at every word on this page, it was only when I had read two-thirds of the notebook that the content was no longer a record of events in diary form as before.

  Above was written: 'After spending over a decade, I finally translated the texts on the remaining pages into a manuscript. It contains too many secrets, so I must have assumed that the other two also translated the texts and therefore severed all ties with them, never to see each other again in life or death. This is the content of the first chapter of Gui Gu's remaining volume.' Only after reading this did I recall that my grandfather had followed the army on that tomb raid, and among the three survivors, apart from my grandfather who later became a Taoist hermit, the other two were masters of the 'upside-down' art. The book pouch found in the mountain tomb was also divided into three parts.

  I immediately turned to the next page, didn't read a few sentences, and I took a cold breath. My god! What did grandpa steal? Does this really exist?

  Only to see, on top is written Shui Yue, the Taoist name Fa Yan, and Kongming Shi. Kongming, everyone knows, that is Zhuge Liang, a legendary figure, but as for Zhuge Liang's master, no one will know who it is. However, this translation actually says that there are records of Zhuge Liang's master, which makes me feel too unbelievable.

  Then I looked down at the following text, except for recording Mizuki's name and disciples, there are very few records of his life.

  I yawned, ready to turn the page, not wanting to waste any more energy on researching someone who may or may not exist. Just as I was about to flip the page, I suddenly saw the last line of text which read 'Tomb Location'. Seeing these two words, I perked up and immediately turned to the next page.

  The characters above are dense and messy, the handwriting is all grandfather's, I suppose when grandfather found someone to translate the content of these few papers in his hand, he was very careful, and finally gathered them together and wrote them on paper.

  I carefully looked at the content on the paper, and the address written on it basically does not exist now. Each region was called differently in different dynasties back then. Looking at the Shu character above, I couldn't help but start studying it. Originally, I wasn't someone who liked to study history. When I was in school, I didn't even attend history class, and for that, I suffered a lot of lectures from my parents and teachers.

  Looking at the character "Shu" in front of me, I couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy. Half a moment later, I suddenly remembered that in ancient times, Ba and Shu were divided into two parts: the western and central regions of the basin were called Shu, while the eastern region (also known as Chuan Dong) was called Ba; however, the entire basin including its surrounding areas was commonly referred to as Shu.

  The original location of this tomb should be in Sichuan. After taking another look, a thought suddenly occurred to me, that is, the Big Dipper, yes! The Big Dipper.

  As for the ghostly creatures, I don't have any magic tricks, but as for the inverted fight, Grandfather has taught me almost everything he knows, and it's precisely these skills that gave me confidence.

  Just as I was indulging in wild fancies, I heard a "creaking" sound from the window. At that moment, I was standing beside the window. I raised my head to look at the window and found that there was actually a human face stuck on it.